Every mentor has a unique story to tell, a unique perspective to share, and a unique passion that sets them apart as not only mentors or marketers — but as wonderful human beings. I am so excited to share another one with you all.
Hi Tim! Tell me a bit about yourself.
Hey, I'm Tim, 34, born and raised in the Netherlands, recent father of a little girl.
I’m currently heading the mobile marketing team at App Annie; leading mobile app analytics and data provider. My background is in consumer marketing, which I’ve been doing primarily for mobile apps over the last 10 years or so at various companies and brands. My first marketing roles were in mobile gaming but my longest stint of 5+ years was leading the digital marketing team at BUX; a FinTech scale-up and Stock trading platform in Amsterdam.
In my career, I've done all kinds of stuff from TV advertising and PR campaigns to email blasts and SEO, but my main skills are in mobile advertising and user acquisition.
What is your marketing career journey? Walk us through it.
My marketing journey is a weird one. My father as well as my grandfather both worked in advertising and I’ve studied communication myself. But I never truly think of myself as a marketer. I started my career as an entrepreneur building products; mobile games to be precise.
And when I wasn’t selling enough of those I realised I needed to learn more about marketing and advertising. This sparked a journey and a drive to help grow products, as you can never have too many customers when you have a cool product!
My role in marketing has always been on that cross-road of acquiring customers and then keeping them engaged with the product. Maximising customer retention and calculating their ROI etc. I’ve always leaned towards the more technical and analytical side of marketing, making sure everything is scalable and has measurable goals.
My approach is generally very hands-on and pragmatic but in recent years I’ve mostly been in team lead positions where I get a lot of energy out of collaborating and tackling challenges in a wider marketing department. What’s interesting to share is that I’ve pretty much always reported to CPOs and Product Directors in my career rather than CMOs and Marketing directors.
Tim at work
What do you like to do when you’re not working?
I still care a lot for entrepreneurship and do some things there on the side, but when I’m not working I love spending time with my family. And I have a lifelong passion for everything video games! Not just playing games for fun but also being active in the games industry and I’m an avid collector of retro video games and consoles.
I also used to do some amateur motorsports like tinkering and driving my car on racetracks a couple of times a year. :-) But this has sadly come to a halt now during the covid pandemic.
Who are the people that inspire you the most?
Inspiration comes from everywhere and anything. But I have a love for entertainment and comedy, these things make life fun and not too serious.
I generally admire people that dedicate their lives to entertain others and exist to make people laugh! This could be anyone from legendary video game designers and film directors I admire, to comedians like Peter Sellers and Jerry Seinfeld. It sounds contradicting but in marketing, I actually tend to get inspired by the more analytical, financial, and economic masterminds of our industry.
Do you have any tips for fresh marketers?
My top tip for fresh marketers is to try to develop a so called T-shaped profile. Pick your focus area in marketing but open yourself up to learn (at least a little) about everything. Product, tech, analytics, customer support, finance, etc. The lines in business are getting blurrier and neither marketing nor a customer journey stops when you’ve acquired or persuaded them through marketing.
The whole product and brand experience matter nowadays and customers ‘force' brands to be more transparent. Also, many aspiring marketing professionals are often not sure what specific skills to develop (first).
My tip: if you’re having a hard time picking a marketing specialism, go for a specialised “passion” vertical instead. You can be a broader marketer, but an expert in fashion, finance, foods, games, or eCommerce for example.
And lastly, don’t forget to network and get to know peers in marketing.
When you talk a lot to other people in marketing, you’ll often notice that everyone is facing the same marketing challenges and opportunities and it’s great to talk about those.
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Thank you for reading!
Tim is a digital marketing professional with 10+ years of experience in data-driven growth for mobile apps & games.
Having trouble getting into a digital marketing role? Not going through your interviews successfully maybe? If you want to schedule a mentoring session with Tim, click here.